Student Poses as Slave in Protest of Trump

Yale student Branson Rideaux is not taking a Trump-won presidency lightly. In fact, Rideaux, who is slated to graduate in 2020, is so upset at Trump’s win that he decided to stage an action sure to turn heads, by dressing up as a slave.

The college freshman stood in front of the John C. Calhoun building on Yale’s campus to highlight the similarities between Trump, and Calhoun, a well-known advocate of slavery in his time, and also the seventh Vice President of the United States.

This is not the first time requests to change the name of the undergraduate school have been made either. The name Calhoun has been a source of contention between Yale students and the administration for months as ongoing protests have occurred as students attempt to change “Calhoun College” at the university.

Students have been speaking out against the college name at Yale on and off for decades, due to the White supremacist beliefs that Calhoun subscribed to, according to The Atlantic. In 2015, Yale once again shot down requests to change the name.

This past October, a new committee was formed to once again decide the fate of the college’s name as a result of protests that month, one that resulted in a window of the college depicting slaves in a cotton field was broken. Cory Menafee, the Yale Employee who broke the window allegedly did it because, “It’s the 21st century” and “we shouldn’t have to see that.”

For Rideaux, the link between Trump and the former vice president is obvious.

“Both Calhoun and Trump run on messages of hate.”

Video of Rideaux’s protest can be viewed below. Watch it for yourself and read his full quote on why he decided to protest in such a spectacular fashion.

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